Letters: Gun rights, same-sex marriage and more

Why liberals should hope the courts rule in favor of the right to carry guns in public

It is appropriate for court rulings to delimit our rights, but not to rescind them.

The difference is one of degree. Courts have held that you don’t have a right to yell “fire!” in a crowded theater. But if a court prohibited most people from talking outside their own home, it would be such a massive restriction of our right to free speech that it would violate rather than delimit that right. While the courts have delimited rights, they have never ruled that any fundamental right was inapplicable to most people most of the time.

The Second Amendment to the Bill of Rights states “ ... the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” Forty-seven of the 50 states allow most people to carry a loaded gun (bear arms) beyond the limits of their own home. Some states permit open carry. Some permit concealed carry. Some permit both. Many require a license, but issue licenses to most people. Three states prohibit most people from carrying a loaded gun outside the privacy of their own home: California, New York and Illinois.

By doing so, those three states have created such a massive restriction of the right to bear arms that it violates rather than delimits that right. They have rendered the right to bear arms inapplicable to most people most of the time.

The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals found the Illinois prohibition unconstitutional and ordered the state to correct it by June 9. Challenges to the carry laws in New York and California may eventually reach the Supreme Court. If the carry laws in New York and California are upheld, it will be the first time that a constitutional right was ruled inapplicable to most people most of the time. Regardless of how they feel about guns, most liberals and conservatives believe that the Bill of Rights should apply to most people most of the time. That the Bill of Rights might be so fragile is a frightening prospect. I don’t own a gun, and I understand the need to delimit our rights, but I think it is important that any rescindment of the Bill of Rights occur through amendment rather than court action.

Mark Tierney

El Cajon

Unnecessary changes in the tourism department

Regarding: “Mayor amends tourism demands,” March 17: I myself, being a hospitality and tourism management student at SDSU, feel that Mayor Bob Filner seems to be making unnecessary changes to the already approved funding budget for the Tourism Marketing Department of San Diego.

The budget that was written and approved by previous Mayor Jerry Sanders was already backed by the City Council members and TMD. Although the mayor may be trying to help the employees of hotels by demanding a “living wage,” he may be doing more harm than good.

Mayor Bob Filner states that he wants to ensure that the taxpayers’ money isn’t going towards “exorbitant, gold-plated executive salaries.” Yet, it was only last year that city council proposed a pay raise to the salaries of all the city council members, including the mayor, that would double their annual salaries, making the mayor’s salary a whopping $235,000. The amends the mayor proposed also require the TMD to reserve $5 million towards Balboa Park’s centennial celebration in 2015, which seems slightly excessive.

Maybe the mayor doesn’t see or value the importance of the tourism industry in San Diego, which employs over 160,000 people. San Diego alone has over 32 million visitors a year that spend around $8 billion dollars annually, translating to over $388 million in state and local taxes. So before the mayor decides to cut budget costs and withhold much needed funds from TMD maybe he should re evaluate the numbers and realize just how much income the tourism industry provides San Diego.

Tammy Martin

La Mesa

Criminals ignore laws

In response to the letter by Debra Culver and Marsha Hann (“National weapons safeguard solution,” March 30): The left seems to ignore common sense whenever they address a problem they have identified. Debra Culver and Marsha Hann want to punish legal gun owners with a tax levied by insurance companies.

What makes them think the criminals who commit gun crimes will buy mandated insurance? Criminals ignore laws, girls, that’s why we call them criminals. This is simply another way to increase the cost of guns similar to the much bandied about tax on ammunition. This is a thinly veiled attempt to keep law abiding citizens from being able to afford guns.

“A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” Infringe means to encroach on somebody’s rights or property: to take over land, rights, privileges, or activities that belong to somebody else, especially in a minor or gradual way. This “solution” as with all the left’s solutions to gun crimes is an infringement on our right to self defense.

If our natural right to self defense had not been diluted as much as it has and if people were taught as they used to be taught to respect other people and their rights, we would not need these silly and unconstitutional solutions.

Scott Rieker

San Diego

Bad for the city, taxpayers

The Saturday editorial about “the tattered relationships” at City Hall between the mayor, the city attorney and the city council raises serious issues (“A good deal done, what next for City Hall?”). The U-T San Diego is correct in surmising that the relationships between them may be “so poisoned” that they may lead to political disfunction and gridlock. This is obviously bad for the city, and its taxpayers. The question left unanswered is what can be done, as a practical matter, to address and cure the problem.

First, we need to look at the legal functions of the various parties. Mayor Filner, under the city’s charter, is the chief executive officer of the city. He is charged with executing and enforcing “all laws, ordinances, and policies of the City.” In recent years, the voters expressly decided that the city should have a strong mayor, with extensive powers. Some mayors in the past have basically spent significant time sitting in a big chair, in a big office, listening to a continuing stream of people wanting favors from the city, telling the mayor and his or her staff how wonderful they are, and hinting as to their ability to financially support re-election. This may sound harsh, but having worked in City Hall for 28 years, I believe the description is at least partially correct.

Mayor Filner, on the other hand, has so far been more like the proverbial “bull in a china shop,” rushing around, creating some fans and a lot of powerful adversaries. He seems to think such abrasive actions are appropriate, as long as his goal is the benefit the poor, the middle class, and perhaps also ultimately “trickle up” to the very rich. In any event, he is performing, in his distinctive way, his duties as mayor, as specified in the city charter.

Next, we have City Attorney Goldsmith. Under the city charter, the City Attorney is charged with being the “chief legal advisor of, and attorney for the City and all Departments and offices thereof in matters relating to their official powers and duties” (Charter Section 40). The office of the city attorney is not a political office, it is a legal office. The above description of duties includes the obligation to act as attorney for the mayor and council members. Any attorney practicing law in California is subject to the State Bar’s “Rules of Professional Conduct.” The rules include a provision stating, “A Bar member shall not intentionally, recklessly or repeatedly fail to perform legal services competently.”

“Competence” is defined as applying diligence, learning and skill and mental and emotional ability reasonably necessary for the performance of service. What appears to have happened is that Mayor Filner and City Attorney Goldsmith got off to a rough start, apparently because of personal and political differences of opinion. In normal circumstances, a client would, in such a case, simply terminate the client-attorney relationship. Unfortunately for Mayor Filner, he does not have that option. It is clear from news reports that Mr. Goldsmith, having once gone so far as to call a press conference to publicly disagree with his client, has left the mayor with a reasonable doubt as to Mr. Goldsmith’s willingness and ability to represent him in a vigorous, fair and competent manner, undiminished by their difference in political philosophy. Thus, we have a situation where the taxpayers are paying the city attorney to do a job, when his client is convinced by the city attorney’s actions that he cannot expect fair and unbiased legal representation. The well has clearly been poisoned.

The result is that the taxpayers can now expect to have to pay another lawyer, even though it has already paid Goldsmith to do that job, whenever the mayor needs aggressive legal help. At this point it then seems as the only rational alternative is for city attorney Goldsmith to resign. His statements that he represents “the city” and all its people, rather than the mayor, is simply not correct. If such were the case, he would first have to get a Charter amendment, and then get funding to add thousands of deputies, and then tell all the lawyers in private practice that they might as well leave town.

Hal Valderhaug

La Mesa

Uphold traditional marriage

True marriage — that between one man and one woman — is the preeminent and the most fundamental of all human social institutions.

It is a relationship defined by nature and protected by the natural law that binds all men and women. It finds its foundation in the order of creation. Civil institutions do not create marriage nor can they create a right to marry for those who are incapable of marriage.

Marriage was established by the creator with its own nature, essential properties and purpose that include the procreation and upbringing of new human lives.

Sadly, marriage has been reduced to another commodity in our culture.

In an age when children can be manufactured and grown in the body of a surrogate when they want — while millions are being aborted at will because they are not wanted — “civil rights” are being manufactured by the agencies of the civil government. They are multiplying — while real rights, fundamental human rights, which have been endowed upon us by God, are being taken away, one after another.

When sexual behavior between two men or two women is viewed as providing a foundation for a new civil right to marry, the real common good of society is placed at risk. When those who oppose this mistake are routinely characterized as bigots, overt persecution of the Church is close at hand.

Let’s pray that our justices of the U.S. Supreme Court will do the right thing for all Americans and uphold the traditional meaning of marriage.